When there is not enough food to feed everybody. Usually used for humans, but other animals also suffer.

Famine can be caused by naturally (by drought or excessive rain, by diseases or other factors) or can be man-made (by war or political matters) or even a mix of both (those in power take advantage of the food shortage for their own gain).

Man-made case point: the Holodomor in 1932 Ukraine, when Stalin's policies of collectivism starved up to ten million Ukrainians, driving some to cannibalism to survive. Most of the victims were peasants who had their crops, livestock, and food stolen from them pointblank by "activist" soldiers.

Mixture case-point: Irish potato famine (An Gorta Mor) of 1845-1849, when a blight ruined potato crops and excess grain exports on the part of British authorities starved over a million Irish peasants and caused a similar number of people to flee from Ireland.

The Donner Party, whose poor choice of shortcuts cost them many resources and precious days before winter, suffered their own famine in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

Famine is a being believed to be of alien descent that roams the GT Planet (www.gtplanet.net) forums. Wise and all knowing s/he is capable of smiting even the most longterm of forum users.
His only weakness is lack of knowledge towards military planes and the definition of 'hatchback'.
You can instantly identify 'Famine' by his/her use of bold and indigo text in all posts.

Famine- "The speed of light is "c" (roughly 186,000 miles per second) and it cannot be reached by any non-zero rest mass particle (or object) because of e=mc^2."